End of time bad theology...

A friend's mother recently asked me about  "end of time prophecies."  And as you know, many preachers have made a living out of pulling scriptures out of context, combining them together in ways that are arbitrary, and coming up with maps of the end of time and dates for the end.   There is a great book called, "The Last Days are here Again" by Richard Kyle.  In the book he goes thru church history and outlines every group who made a calendar and set a date for Jesus' return. I guess that humans like to feel that they are special and living in special times.  By the way, none of the predictions were correct.  The authors however, did make a lot of money off of their readers.

In my opinion, this is all a waste of time. The rapture and attached teachings were not taught prior to the 1850's.  It is a new teaching in the timeline of Christianity.  If you don't believe me, read about it online, read about John Nelson Darby and how this teaching emerged.  It is a new comer to Christianity and it is not a helpful doctrine.

A companion thought that I have to this is that the book of Revelation is not about the future, it is about the past.   John wrote Revelation about what was happening in his day and he wrote it for the Christians being persecuted by Rome.  I am not a scholar, but this is the view of all Biblical scholars.

So, in my opinion, except for the simple return of Jesus, all "Biblical prophecy" has already taken place.

To me the good news about this is that we can stop worrying and stop speculating about the end of time, about Israel and the Middle East.  We don't have to worry about some tribulation time coming in the future.  Instead, we can relax and live and live and live - lives of love.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.